Gurubhai a.k.a Dhirubhai

This post is written after watching the much awaited film of the year "Guru" by Maniratnam. I always love mani ratnam for his marketing style, casting, managerial skills, sensational stories. But still mani is worth few credits for giving sensible cinema for the last 20+ years. Hats of Mani Bhai for depicting Dhirubhai's story in his typical "shtyle".

But I loved the story which has greater resemblance of Shri Dhirubhai Ambani (to whom i have a greater respect, even though there are questions of ethics were always posted against his style of doing the business).

The movie starts with Guru who has failed in exams pursues to do work in turkey (dhirubhai went to Aden (Yemen), and works for Shell (burma shell company). Once he earns sufficient money guru has the passion to do business on his own. Marries Sujata (aishwarya) for dowry which he uses it as captial and proceeds on his way to start his venture "Shakti Corporation".

During this time he befriends manik das gupta, the media barron (this resembles of Shri R P Goenka of indian express) , who helps him initially to start the company and fights with Guru for his unlawful practices, in the later half of the story.

The movie has lots of resemblance on Dhirubhai's life, on Reliance, their logo, the way the backward integration was extended from yarn-rayon-chemicals-refinery etc. Guru (Abhishek) the way he parts away from his brother-in-law and starts his business (dhirubhai parted with his cousin and resumed his business) and gets paralysed with his right arm in a immovable state. The sequence of conducting the sharholders meetings in stadiums were started by Reliance in india which was portrayed the same way in the movie.

It shows yet again that all his stories are not original and basically inspired from mythology(dhalapathi from mahabaratha / satyavan savithri (roja, where she fights for husband's life) / inspiration from a news article (kidanapping of IOC official Doraiswamy (roja) / varadha bhai (nayakan) / chor chor (kshanak kshanam) / yuva (amigo perros) / Guru (Dhirubhai).../ pallavi Anu Pallavi (aboorva raagangal ,young guy falling in love with older woman)

I would have been much happier if Mani would have given enough credits to Dhirubhai who was the real villager, visionary and winner. If you want to read more about Dhirubhai read this http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dhirubhai.

Ofcourse, you can watch this movie for the technical grandeur viz, usage of handheld cams by Rajeev Menon for Barso Re song and Mayya Mayya and Samir Chanda's photography. But the usual locations of Melkottai (which comes in chor-chor / in rakkama song of dhalapathi) / thirumalai nayak mahal (similar to kehana hi kya) do appear in this movie (thanks ram for info about melkottai, a place on TN-karnatka border) . Interestingly my friend krish pointed out the striking resemblances of train and rain sequences which appears in every mani movie also appears here.

/Lakshman